Peace
by DusktoDawn21
Summary: A day on the job!


The sky was overcast with dark clouds giving the day a solemn and gray feeling with no end in sight. Twenty-five-year-old, tall, dark haired officer Frank Hardy, responded to a call of apparent suicide late Thursday afternoon. The victim was a woman from a well-to-do family who lived alone in a sprawling mansion in the suburbs of Bayport.

 _The body is upstairs in the master bathroom._

As Frank walked into the luxury marble floor bathroom, he saw a .22 caliber pistol on the floor. The barrel was pointed toward the bathtub which was on his left. In the tub he found the woman lying on her back, her right arm was dangling out of the tub. She had a small bullet wound to her right temple with powder burns around it. There was a much larger exit wound on the left side of her head. There was blood and brain matter all over the wall, tub and her.

"When was she found?", Frank asked his subordinate officer, as he wore his gloves.

"The neighbor called it in half hour ago. She said she heard a shot come from the house".

Frank eyed the lifeless woman who seemed to be in her late forties or early fifties. His years on the job had hardened him to life and death both. He was used to pushing his emotions deep inside him else he would not have been able to continue his work. Suicides, however seemed to bother him. How could anything be bad enough for people to take their own lives?

Frank took a moment to get his emotions in check, then calmly went about his business of fitting the case together. He could hear the raindrops beating on the window's gutter outside- made him quite melancholy.

"Was there a suicide note?" Frank always looked for a suicide note but, in the cases he had worked, he very seldom found one. Somehow it made the suicides easier to deal with for him. He formed a picture of a person who had reached the end of his rope and proceeded to end his suffering. However, this woman had thrown him a curve which made it hard for him to fit her suicide into a sterile neat package.

Frank found her note in the bedroom, just a foot from where she now lay dead. In a legal sense it was a suicide note but, yet it was much more than that. It was an open letter to her family.

 _My dear loving family,_

 _I love you all so much. Please do not blame yourselves or each other for my death. I really hope that my death will unify the family and bring you all together. It is important to me that you all meet as a family solidified with love. I am very sorry that the house is such shambles, but I had not gotten around to cleaning it. I did not want to make things any worse, so I will to keep the mess in the bathtub where it could be cleaned up easier. I am sorry I was not stronger, and I hope you all understand and forgive me. Please take care of each other. I Love you all._

 _Goodbye_

Frank neatly folded the suicide note into the evidence bag and handed it over to his subordinate. This note bothered him. _How can someone sit and calmly plan their own death like that_? Before he read the note, she was just another suicide victim, but after he had read it she became a real person. Unlike his other cases that gave him the satisfaction of putting the perpetrators behind bars, suicides never offered any closure. It was a life gone too soon. Nobody and yet somehow everybody in that person's life was responsible for it.

Later that night, as Frank trudged toward his flat, the crisp breeze lifted strands of his dark hair away from his forehead. He could have gone home in any manner of ways that were faster than the long walk from his office, but he needed the time. The events of the day weighed him down and he needed the air to settle the dredge. Plus, he hated to bring baggage home to his wife, Callie Shaw, his high school sweetheart who he married right out of college. She certainly didn't deserve it.

He climbed up the three flights of stairs to his apartment on the top floor. It was a cozy two-bedroom apartment and their first house together. He turned the key to his apartment and silently slipped in, grateful for the years of training that allowed him to do so.

He walked into the kitchen and saw the plate of food Callie had kept warm for him. Frank smiled at her thoughtfulness but had lost his appetite and so he covered the plate and stuck it in the fridge. It was late; Callie had already gone off to bed. He missed her.

He took a quick shower, turned off the water and gave himself a cursory drying. He put on his pajamas and a t-shirt and walked down the hall to his bedroom that he shared with Callie. Being afraid of the dark, Callie never slept without a night light on. It had taken Frank some time to get used to it as he was a light and sensitive sleeper. He watched Callie sleep for a few minutes, listening to her rhythmic breathing and the quiet that surrounded them.

Frank stripped his clothes off and slid under the covers next to Callie. She lay curled on her side with her hair tied up in a ribbon. He tugged at the ribbon, so her hair came undone. He did that whenever she had her hair tied up. He loved the feel of her silky golden blonde hair against his fingers. He pulled her close to him breathing in the floral scent emanating from her body.

 _Peace._ Something he never took for granted. He wanted peace, but the events of the day made him restless and sleep would not come to him. On days like these, the only peace of any kind he felt was with her. The clock on the side table read 1am. It was late, and Callie went to work early in the morning. He didn't want to disturb her, but his hand moved up and down her thighs. _He needed her, he wanted her._

She stirred still sleeping. Frank gently turned her to face him. Her eyes fluttered open as he reached to push her golden strands off her face. She smiled at him and closed her eyes again falling back to sleep.

" _Callie"_

She opened her eyes again and looked at him searchingly. He kissed her softly, almost pleadingly. He wanted to lose himself in her. He pulled back and looked into her honey brown eyes for a moment, and then slanted his mouth over hers. She understood, closed her eyes, surrendering to the dark frenzy overwhelming her as his mouth moved over hers. He opened himself to her, and everything he felt flowed into her. His pain, hurt and grief became her own as she lost herself in the dark taste of his mouth, merging into him.

He rolled over, so that he was on top of her, tugging her thin nightdress over her head. A slow groan escaped his mouth, and he leaned down on her again. She met him halfway, giving into his desire as they became whole.

Some time later, Frank lay next to Callie, spooning her protectively drifting into the familiar contours of sleep. Peace, that had eluded him all day long, finally came to him.

 _A/N : This short fic is dedicated to CherylAnn Rivers_


End file.
